Reports
Markets
Latest
Maps
Learn
Chat
Price a home right and it moves in a week. Price it wrong and it can sit for months. That gap has widened over the past year.
We looked at more than 73,000 sales from May 2025 through April 2026 to measure how much listing price affects days on market, and compared the results to the same window over a year earlier to update an analysis of pricing and days on market originally published in September 2024.
The overall median time on market has risen from 15 days two years ago to 21 days now. But the slowdown isn't evenly distributed. Correctly priced homes still go under contract in about a week, just as they did a year ago. The extra days are concentrated in mispriced listings, where the penalties have grown sharply. Price right and you're largely insulated from the slowdown. Price wrong and you absorb most of it.
Free campaign kit
Talk to sellers about pricing
Slide deck, client handout, talking points, social graphics, and more — ready to use.
A home listed at its eventual sale price goes under contract in a median of 7 days. Half are under contract within 2 to 18 days. A year ago, that range was 1 to 14 days — correctly priced homes are still moving quickly, but with a slightly longer tail.
Price it 2% too high and that window opens to 6 to 42 days. At 4% over, 11 to 58 days. At 10% over, 25 to 104 days. Each of those ranges has stretched compared with a year ago, when 10% over meant 19 to 87 days.
The penalty starts with the first percentage point. At market price the median is 7 days; one percent over and that doubles to 14.
Homes listed 2% to 10% below their eventual sale price go under contract in roughly 2 to 12 days. That's barely faster than a correctly priced home, and it comes at a direct cost in proceeds. A year ago, the same underpriced homes moved in 2 to 9 days — so even underpricing has lost some of its speed advantage. Underpricing makes sense if speed is the overriding priority, but the advantage is smaller than most sellers assume.
About one in four sellers lists within 1% of their eventual sale price, and 54% are within 4%. That share has ticked up slightly from a year ago, a sign that sellers and their agents have begun to recalibrate after years of strong price growth.
Still, more than a third list more than 5% above their eventual sale price, also up slightly from a year ago. The slower market hasn't corrected the overpricing tendency. Today's buyers are well-informed, typically working with an expert REALTOR®, and patient.
A year ago, listing 10% above the eventual sale price meant a wait of 19 to 87 days. Today it's 25 to 104 days — roughly two extra weeks at the median, and more than two extra weeks at the long end. At 20% over, the upper quartile has stretched from 113 days to 134 days. The further off the price, the more the penalty has grown.
Mostly, yes. Once a seller cuts the price, buyers typically move within about two weeks, regardless of how many reductions came before. A listing's history of price cuts doesn't appear to scare buyers off. What it costs is the time spent waiting at each wrong price.
Homes that reduce once typically go under contract about 5 weeks after listing. A second reduction stretches that to 9 weeks. A third takes it to 12. The waiting period at each wrong price runs about 3 weeks, and it repeats with every cut.
The phrase “priced correctly” may need a little explanation — we’re using the basic economic principle that ‘a good is worth exactly what someone will pay for it.’ The final sale price of a home is the “correct price” by this definition. There are many ways to measure value — we’re only concerned with price. How close the listing price is to the sale price is our measure of how accurately the listing broker and seller assessed buyer demand, seasonality and other market factors. This analysis is made with the benefit of hindsight to evaluate the consequences of misjudging the market.
Correctly priced homes still sell fast, but the market is less forgiving of mispricing than it was a year ago. A home at the right price goes under contract in about a week. The same home priced 10% too high could sit for three months — about two weeks longer than it would have last year.
The market has slowed, but the slowdown lives in mispriced listings. An expert REALTOR® can identify the right price range using current comparable sales. Listing price is the most consequential decision in the selling process. Right now, the difference between a right price and a wrong one is measured in months.